


avec mes souvenirs, j'ai allume le feu (with my memories, i lit up the fire)

by piikanana



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Alternate Universe, Franglais, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piikanana/pseuds/piikanana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyuhyun finds peace in Paris, leaving behind his old life to start anew. But what he doesn't expect is to find love on the Champs-Elysees in the form of a lost tourist who speaks incredibly bad Franglais.</p>
            </blockquote>





	avec mes souvenirs, j'ai allume le feu (with my memories, i lit up the fire)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: contains bad French, horrific Franglais and possibly grammar errors due to not being beta-read. You have been warned. if you have never any exposure to French, you may either want to keep a translator open.. (but I think you can get the gist of the story, even though all the dialogue contains quite a bit of French).

After a year of living in France, Kyuhyun had created a routine for himself. Kyuhyun likes planning, likes knowing what comes afterwards and what to expect. And on Tuesday afternoons, he visits the local cafe that is located close to his apartment with manuscripts to work on his music. He sits outdoors, sipping his caramel macchiato, and simply watches people. He loves observing others; it's one of the ways that Paris inspires him the most. There are so many stories that surround him and help him write music.

 

Tuesdays, in particular, are for observing, because Tuesdays are unimportant. Mondays are the start of the week, and so Kyuhyun creates from a small little melody he might hum by accident. Wednesdays are the exact middle between Monday and Friday, so he spends the day recording what he has previously written on his manuscripts to see if it’s any good. Thursday is for listening back to the recordings, and making alterations and changes to make the music even better. And Fridays - the last day in the week - is for finishing and sending the music off to the company. But what are Tuesdays? It's a question Kyuhyun still doesn't have an answer to, so he just sits and waits for inspiration to strike.

 

That young girl over in the corner, head jerking up every time someone walks through the door? She’s waiting for a date, one that will never show up. That couple by the window? They’re childhood sweethearts who have only recently built up the courage to confess to each other their love. And the old man…the one who is looking down the street? Mourning the death of his beloved, one whom he spent the past few decades with growing old. The street he is looking at is the one they walked down together every weekend, hand in hand.

 

Songwriters are, in many ways, storytellers. So stories inspire Kyuhyun's songs about love, friendship and human emotion.  Some of his personal favorites all started from a simple observation about a stranger. So Kyuhyun spends his Tuesdays in a café, watching people quietly.

 

*

 

Kyuhyun had packed up his life into two suitcases, bought a French-Korean dictionary, and started a new life in a new city. After a few years, Kyuhyun had adapted to life in the French capital: he had started to speak French like a native, he could navigate Paris with his eyes closed and he had favorite cafés and restaurants that he would often frequent.

 

But if there was one thing that Paris didn't do for Kyuhyun, it was that it didn't bring him love in the 6 years he had lived there. After all - Paris is supposedly the city of Romance with a capital R. It had been years since Kyuhyun had felt his heart flutter for anyone, even though he had dated regardless of feeling that funny emotion called love. He just hadn't met anyone special enough for him to take down some of the barriers he had built up.

 

So when Kyuhyun met Jongwoon on a somewhat ordinary and boring Tuesday afternoon, the last thing he expected is to fall in love. Especially given that Jongwoon is wearing a hideous pink cheetah print top, and a hideous bowler hat, and spoke horrible Franglais. But sometimes fate is a strange thing, and it just so happens that Kyuhyun happens upon Jongwoon by chance by the Champs-Elysees, struggling to order a cup of coffee at Kyuhyun's favorite café.

 

*

 

Kyuhyun had hit a writer’s block on that particular Tuesday. It was a beautiful day – the sun shone and he noticed that the leaves were unraveling from their buds on the tips of tree branches. The weather was gorgeous, but nothing was inspiring. Kyuhyun had stared at his blank manuscript for nearly an hour when he first heard Jongwoon.

 

“I would like un café with milk s’il vous plait.”

“Monsieur, je suis très désolé mais je comprends pas.” _(Sir, I am very sorry but I do not understand)_

 

Kyuhyun lifted his head in surprise and watched as the man with the bowler hat and pink shirt waved his arms around, attempting to use body language to communicate the concept of a regular coffee with milk to the poor waiter who hadn’t understood a single word of what the man was trying to say. It looked vaguely like an interpretive dance, and Kyuhyun snorted at the man’s ridiculous attempts. Kyuhyun frowned as he took in what the man was wearing. It was evident that the man was a foreigner even if the Franglais hadn’t given him away simply by how the man was dressed.

 

On Tuesdays, Kyuhyun is an observer. A third party, one that does not interfere with the people that he is watching. The rules that Kyuhyun has set up are simple: do not get caught (people do not like the idea of being watched), only stick to watching strangers and do not talk or interfere with the strangers’ lives.

 

So it really should have been a warning sign that Jongwoon would come and mess with Kyuhyun’s life the moment Kyuhyun broke rule number three for him. But Kyuhyun couldn’t help himself; Jongwoon’s French (or Franglais) had been so bad that it was impossible for Kyuhyun to just sit there and do nothing.

 

“Pardon garçon, cet monsieur voudrait un café au lait.” _(Excuse me boy. This sir would like a coffee with milk)_

“Merci monsieur! Je comprend pas, donc il est heureusement que vous êtes la pour vous aider.” _(Thank you sir! I did not understand, so it is fortunate that you are here to help)_

The man had watched their exchange with wide eyes. When the waiter walked away, he turned to Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun had expected thanks, but instead he watched as the man turned to him with horror in his eyes.

 

“What did you do? Pourquoi you send the garçon away?”

 

Kyuhyun didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He contemplated for a second to reply in English, but he realized that his English vocabulary was very rusty.

 

“Um. I...help you order le coffee. Avec milk.”

 

He mentally slapped himself for sounding just as stupid as the man in front of him, but the man has a large smile on his face. Kyuhyun wondered for a brief second if it was possible to die from a smile because his heart had suddenly stopped.

 

“Are you busy today? Occ…Occupé? Aujourd’hui?”

 

To this day, Kyuhyun still doesn’t understand what compelled him to shake his head and inadvertently agree to spend a whole day with Jongwoon. It’s one of those things that just happened because the universe wanted it to.

 

“Perfect! Je m’appelle Jongwoon. Let’s be amigos. Oh wait, no, amigos is Espanol. Let’s be amis!”

 

*

 

The first (and last) time Kyuhyun fell in love, it wasn’t really love. It was his first year of high school, and he met the most beautiful boy he had ever seen. He thought that because the boy was so handsome and perfect that it must’ve been love. The boy looked like he walked straight out from a movie, and Kyuhyun was infatuated.

 

It wasn’t until later that he found out that the boy had a terrible personality, and spent the next year bullying Kyuhyun for his confession. Kyuhyun would find his things missing inexplicably, or thrown against doorways by the boy and his friends.

 

It was that year that Kyuhyun discovered that you shouldn’t always trust the human eye. The human eye can be misleading, and being appreciative of beauty should not be equated to falling in love. So when he had met Jongwoon for the first time and thought about how beautiful Jongwoon was, he immediately rejected all notions that he was falling in love. After all, Kyuhyun had built up all these walls and barriers to prevent him from making the same mistake twice.

 

But of course, trust Jongwoon to fuck it all up. Sometimes when Kyuhyun thinks back to how he met Jongwoon, he swears Jongwoon drugged his coffee.

 

*

 

“Is that the tour de Eiffel?”  
“Oui. C’est le Eiffel Tower.”

“C’est…beautiful.”

“Si tu think so.”

 

“So…qu’est-que you do for a living?”  
“My…emploi?”  
“Oui…?”  
“I…écrire la music.”

“Oh, you write music? That’s…awesome! I sing.”

“Sing?”  
“Oh, what’s the word in Francais…chanter?”

“Chanter…sing?”

“Oui. Maybe I can chanter un de your songs.”

“Peut-être. Maybe.”

 

“So what is your favorite norriture?”

“Uh..”  
“J’adore la baguettes. Bread. Soup.”  
“Um..okay…”

“Let’s go find ourselves a boulangerie!”

 

“I think this pain is delicieux. I’m going feed some to canards.”

“Pain? Pain is delicious? You want to torture les canards?”

“Non! I mean pain…as in bread pain.”

“Oh.”

 

“The sunset is…belle.”

“Oui, c’est…gorgeous.”

“Kyuhyun?”

“Hm?”

“Can I hold your main?”

“My…main?”

“Hand?”

“Si tu aimes.”

“I’ll take that as a oui then.”

“Show moi some of your musique?”  
“You wish chanter my musique?”

“Oui.”

“Maybe next time.”

“I’m keeping you to your word?”

“What? Je comprend pas.”  
“Il y a not important.”

 

“We’re outside my l’hôtel.”

“Oui. Is this the right place?”

“Je peux kiss you?”

“I comprend pas.”

“I’ll take that as a oui then.”

 

*

 

Kyuhyun was used to people leaving him all the time and never coming back. The first time Kyuhyun thought he was capable of feeling a little more than indifference for a man, they had sex in a dusty motel and he had never come back. Kyuhyun could still remember the feel of skin rubbing against skin, that feeling of power being in someone and eliciting moans that seemed to shake Kyuhyun to his core. But he could also remember that feeling of waking up in a motel room the next morning with no one else in his bed, and that feeling of disappointment that once again, his hormones and inability to resist good-looking guys led him astray.

 

So when Jongwoon flirted with Kyuhyun the entire day, he hadn’t thought anything of it. Even when Jongwoon kissed him on the lips, Kyuhyun didn’t allow his heart to flutter. It wasn’t Kyuhyun’s typical Tuesday, but it was just a day. One day only. Kyuhyun expected Jongwoon to just leave and never come back. Kyuhyun’s heart had been hardened by all the heartbreaks.

 

Whoever said that hearts become more fragile after breaks and shatters were obviously wrong. The more heartbreak one suffered, the harder the walls of one’s heart become. And the harder it is to let someone else in.

 

So when Jongwoon came back the next day, and gently pecked Kyuhyun’s cheek, Kyuhyun threw all the disappointment that piled up from previous lovers, and tentatively started to allow himself to hope.

 

*

 

“I love you.”

“Tu ne peux pas. Tu ne devrais pas.” ( _You can’t. You shouldn’t._ )

“Why?”

“Parce que…je me suis.” ( _Because…I am me._ )

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Because I am…me.”

“No, I understood you en français and avec the gestures. I just didn’t understand the semantics.”

“Semantique?”

“Yes. The meaning. What do you mean I can’t love you because you’re you?”

“Don’t love me.”

“Pourquoi pas?” ( _Why not?_ )

“Because. Just. Because.”

“Not a good enough answer.”

“Parce que je ne vais pas survivre si tu me quittes après m’avoir aime. Parce que tu es…diffèrent.” ( _Because I will not survive if you leave me after loving me. Because you are…different._ )

“Wow I did not understand a single word of that. But Kyuhyun. Be mine for tonight. Let me prove to you that I love you. Just tonight. I can see it in your eyes that you want this too.”

 

*

 

Kyuhyun tortured himself with “what-ifs” after Jongwoon left. What if he had begged Jongwoon to stay? What if he had left Paris to be with Jongwoon? What if he told Jongwoon how he really felt; how he was so confused that he felt so strongly about someone who he had only known for a couple of days? Would Jongwoon had left him eventually? Or even worse – what if Jongwoon had stayed?

 

He didn’t know what he would rather have– Jongwoon leaving forever, or Jongwoon staying forever.

 

But for the two years after Kyuhyun had bumped into Jongwoon on that fateful Tuesday afternoon, Jongwoon had visited Kyuhyun repeatedly in Paris whenever he had the chance. Slowly, very slowly, all the memories Kyuhyun had were of Jongwoon. The lazy Sundays spent in bed, doing nothing but linking their hands together, talking about their childhoods and family. The afternoons that were spent walking side by side down the streets of Paris. The painfully domestic moments of arguing over what foods to buy in a grocery store.

 

And when they spent the nights together, Jongwoon would mumble in Kyuhyun’s ear streams of Franglais. French, English or a mix of the two.

 

_“I love you. Je t’aime. Tu me manques. I missed you so. Did you know tu es le plus beau man that I have ever met? Your eyes, ton visage, your hands, your voix. I could stare at you for tous mes jours and still want to look at you even more? When I am not here, not ici, my heart is still with you always. My mind, it wants to be in Paris, with you. Even when I am supposed to be working, my mind wanders to you. L’image of you laughing, l’image of our hands together, l’image of your face as you make love to me. Did you know that you always look like you can’t believe that this is real? C’est la realite Kyuhyun. I’m real and here with you, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”_

Even when Jongwoon wasn’t with Kyuhyun, Kyuhyun would still find himself constantly thinking of him. They would send e-mails to each other – admittedly, Jongwoon always wrote a lot and Kyuhyun very little, but Kyuhyun’s heart always sped up at the thought that there was something waiting for him in his inbox.

 

Jongwoon also enjoyed sending Kyuhyun photos of himself in the mail. The first ones came in a sapphire blue envelope, and had the words “OPEN WHEN ALONE!!!!” on the back, underlined three times. Kyuhyun had blushed when he saw the contents later that night in his bedroom, and his jeans had suddenly become incredibly tight. Sometimes Jongwoon also wrote short phrases on the back of the photos that made Kyuhyun cringe. Some of them were quite cute ( _When I’m around you, I can’t think straight)_ , but some were downright obscene ( _I have nice legs…but they’d look even better wrapped around your waist)_. But Kyuhyun couldn’t deny that they all made him smile. But since the time he received the first sapphire blue envelope, Kyuhyun couldn’t help but have his heart skip a beat, and his palms would grow sweaty at the promise of three short words and at least five exclamation marks scrawled in the back.

 

*

 

The first time Kyuhyun listened to Jongwoon sing, he had been blown away. There was a way that Jongwoon sang that tugged at Kyuhyun's heart.

 

It took Kyuhyun 6 months to realize that all of his songs were centered on Jongwoon. Even his boss and commented that his songs had become “better” from the raw honesty of the lyrics. The register of his songs had moved away from a range that was comfortable for Kyuhyun to a range that was better suited to a lower, husky voice that Jongwoon coincidentally had.

 

It was 8 months when Jongwoon first sang one of the songs that Kyuhyun wrote. All it had taken was for Jongwoon to convey the emotion just the way Kyuhyun wanted him to for Kyuhyun to realize what had been painfully obvious from the very first moment that Jongwoon barged into his life: he had fallen in love.

 

*

 

“I cannot handle being loin from you for most of the time. J’ai besoin us to be together tous les temps or not at all.”

“Je comprend pas.”

“Be avec me.”

“Mais I am already with you. Kyuhyun, what happened?”

“I love you.”

“Je sais. I love you too mon cochon.”

“Why do you call me that? Je suis pas un pig.”

“I think it’s cute. C’est mignon.”

“C’est pas mignon!”

“Come here mon cochon, let Jongwoon kiss your frowny face away.”

 

*

 

“You distract me. “  
“You weren’t complaining a few minutes ago.”

“I will move away from Paris. I want to be where you are.”

“Oh, about that. Well, so isn’t interesting how life turns out? I might be moving…permanently to Paris. So it would be kind of sad if you moved away and we had to resume our long-distance relationship again..”

“Permanently?”

“Paris. Moi. En permanence.” _(Paris. Me. Permanently.)_

“Vraiment?”

“Really.”

 

*

 

“M’epouser?” (Marry me?)

“Are you finally making an honest man out of me?”  
“Oui. Je t’aime. You are my everything. When I close my eyes, the only things I think of are you, you with me and you and me. Marry me.”

“Can we elope and get married in Vegas?”

“…go to sleep mon canard.”

“Is that even a proper term of endearment? I know canard means duck!”

“Shh. Dors. We can talk about this demain.”

“Fine.”

 

“Kyuhyun je t’aime. I’m glad you realized you feel the same, mon emotionally constipated cochon.”

“Moi aussi. Half of the words out of your mouth make no sense. Now shut up and go to sleep.”

“Oui monsieur.”


End file.
